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Image of the Month - August 2018

August's winner of our Image of the Month goes to St David's Catholic College with this dazzling image of NGC 7479 (The Propeller Galaxy, Caldwell 44)!

Due to this galaxy being face-on to Earth's view, we can see its shape and features clearly; features such as the bar in the middle and the two spiral arms extending from the bar's ends. NGC 7479 is a type SBc barred spiral galaxy whose spirals create an inverted 'S' shape which spin in an anti-clockwise direction (from an Earthian viewpoint). Quite interestingly, in radio wavelengths this galaxy spins the other way. Weird. The jet of radio emission in the Propeller Galaxy is thought to be spinning in the opposite direction to the prominent spiral arms due to a probable merging event with another minor galaxy - this would also partly explain the reason behind Caldwell 44's huge amount of starburst activity due to the dynamical interactions of gas and dust of of the merging event still taking place.

NGC 7479 lies approximately 105 million light years away from us in the northern constellation Pegasus.

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